Elite female golfers step into spotlight at Women's South of Ireland Championship in Lahinich
PRESTINE: The sixth green at Lahinch Golf Club in Co Clare
It has been a long time coming, but history will be made at Lahinch this weekend when the revered Clare links hosts the inaugural South of Ireland Women's Amateur Open Championship.
The Women’s South of Ireland is the first of Golf Ireland’s new quartet of annual regional championship for elite females with the 54-hole strokeplay event on a date in the schedule traditionally reserved for Lahinch’s Vaughan Cup.
The fact that the club has not only lent its backing to the new tournament but has donated its prestigious women’s Scratch Cup to the event is a further sign that, however long the wait for these elite Irish regionals, the stars have now aligned, according to Golf Ireland’s Championships & Rules Director Mark Wehrly.
With the West of Ireland scheduled for Sligo’s Castle Dargan on May 31-June 1, the East at Wicklow’s Woodbrook on June 12-13, and the North rounding out the inaugural season at Lough Erne, Fermanagh, on June 28-29, it promises to be a landmark year for elite amateur women’s golf. Wehrly told the he could not think of a better place to kick start the series than with a strong 60-player field at the legendary home of the men’s South of Ireland.
“It seems like this should have happened maybe 20 years ago, but sometimes these things do take time, and I do think it'll be worth the wait, I really do,” he said.
"That's the hope. It was really important for us to start very strongly, and I don't think we could have started more strongly than we did by having the South as the first event in its traditional April date, the date traditionally on which the Vaughan Trophy is taking place.
“And that's certainly the hope, that the success of this event will be a springboard for the other three later this year, and that it will go from strength to strength from there. Once it's proven as an event which players can get good ranking points from, played on great championship courses, then the sky's the limit for it.”
Wehrly believes the amalgamation of Irish golf’s long-standing, gender-based governing bodies into the unifying federation that is Golf Ireland in 2021, aligned to a blossoming female game on this island made the timing perfect for its new circuit.
“Their schedule window back in Ireland in the summertime is quite limited. But actually, over the last few years, there's been a pretty solidly developing slow burner of a critical mass domestically that are playing championship golf. And I suppose it all culminated last year with having so many Irishwomen (16) playing in the Women's Irish Open, nine of whom were amateurs.
“And all of whom looked really comfortable in that environment. And really, I suppose, the conclusion as an organisation that we came to was, if we don't get this to where it needs to be now, I mean, I don't know when we will.
“It was really well set up for it, I think, at this stage.”
For Golf Ireland, kicking off with the South was something of a no-brainer.
“The next step was to reach out to a number of the clubs that traditionally have run very strong Scratch Cups. Because there's quite a good women's Scratch Cup circuit in Ireland, which was supported for many years by the ILGU before Golf Ireland came into being and continued to be supported by Golf Ireland.
“Really, the first sport to call for that would have been Lahinch. So the Vaughan Trophy, which is played for every year, it always gets a very good field. The players really like it.
“Lahinch obviously has a great reputation among the male amateurs and the south always gets a good field and the players speak very highly of not only the course, but the members and the welcome they get there and everything. And the same is clearly true of the women's game. So I think for us, it was really important to give this the best start that it could get.
“Definitely Lahinch, by coming into the fray and agreeing to partner up with us and do the women's South of Ireland, they've done a great service to Irish golf really because they've put up their scratch cup as the trophy for the women's South of Ireland. And it's taken off as a result.
“Definitely the best field from top to bottom in terms of all 60 players that we've had the most competitive field for women's amateur championship in Ireland. And the hope is that this gives the series of events, including the West, the East and the North, the best chance of success going forward.”
Play gets underway at Lahinch with a shotgun start at 9am on Saturday for the first of two rounds on Day One, culminating in a final 72 holes on Sunday for the top half of the leaderboard and ties following a 36-hole cut. Irish international and Hermitage amateur Kate Lanigan, the 2025 Vaughan Cup winner, tees off from the first hole.
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